Penalty kill lone highlight in defeat
ELMONT, N.Y. ❯❯ The penaltykilling highlights for the Ducks in the season opener against the Seattle Kraken were few and far between.
The Kraken went three for five on the man advantage and scored on three of their first four opportunities. Ducks coach Dallas Eakins had a few additional thoughts on the PK on Friday after practice.
“We were not aggressive at all,” Eakins said. “We wouldn't push down on the walls. We wouldn't take away time and space. We were playing a cautious passive game and it mirrored our five-on-five game.”
He called it a “back-up passive game.”
“And we don't want to play like that,” Eakins said. “We want to be aggressive. If you are going to make a mistake — or if they're going to score a goal, whether it's on the power play or penalty kill — let's make it because we were too aggressive.
“But we were in full notchecking mode. We were in a defend, mode, and I hate defend mode.”
Fast forward to Game No. 2.
The Ducks managed to shut down the Islanders' power play, which went 0 for 4 with the man advantage. Of course that's a small consolation considering the way the Ducks played five on five.
“We keep talking already about penalties,” Eakins said after the loss to the Islanders. “I think we took five penalties tonight and four were in the O (offensive) zone, for sure, and I think the other one was in the neutral zone.
“That stymies everything. We started OK and then immediately took a penalty. It usually switches the flow of the game into the other team's hands.”
Lineup tweaks
There was one roster change from the opener — a move on the blue line. Nathan Beaulieu, who was on the third defense pair with Kevin Shattenkirk against Seattle, came out of the lineup for Simon Benoit.
Eakins also moved Jakob Silfverberg down to the fourth line with Max Jones and Derek Grant. That triggered two other changes as Pavol Regenda was promoted to the second line with Frank Vatrano and Trevor Zegras, and Adam Henrique dropped down the third line with Isac Lundestrom and Max Comtois.